Complaints said that in some instances censored words were still identifiable due to audible letters.

Ofcom concluded that in the November 21, 2014 episode there were five counts of "s**t", one of "piss", four instances of "asses" and one of "bastard", as well as 21 bleeped swear words.

The December 5, 2014 episode featured four counts of "s**t", four "frickin'", one "dick" and one "pissed off". There were also three counts of "asses" and 14 bleeped words.

In the December 12, 2014 programme Ofcom counted 10 occurrences of "s**t", five "frickin'", two "prick", one "ass" and 21 instances of bleeped language.

Ofcom found Channel 5 in breach of its rules for airing the episodes as "offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed... unless it is justified by the context".

It noted that all three programmes began at 8pm, before the 9pm watershed. Ofcom said that children (4-15) made up 8.1% of the audience for November 21's episode, 6.1% for December 5 and 2.9% for December 12.

Channel 5 said that the episodes should not have been shown and agreed that the programmes did not comply with the Ofcom code.

It explained that a member of staff who reviewed the episodes did not follow Channel 5's "internal guidelines", and that "these episodes were broadcast contrary to Channel 5's procedures".

The channel apologised for the error and said that none of the select episodes would be broadcast pre-watershed again before being edited.